22G orchid-gkower's manual. 



C. speciosa, Rchh.f. — A very beautiful species, bearing loose 

 racemes of numerous large flowers, whicb are remarkable for 

 their broad lip and long spur. The sepals and petals are 

 light orange -with a cinnabar glow ; and the lip has the front 

 lobe subquadrate and emarginate, about one and a quarter 

 inch wide, with a very short claw and a small keel between 

 the basal auricles, the colour being of the finest cinnabar, 

 orange at the base. The spur is minutely pilose, and more 

 than an inch and a half in length. It has been flowered 

 and exhibited by Sir Trevor Lawrence, Bart., M.P., and 

 awarded a first-class certificate. — Ecuador. 



CORYAKTHES, Hooker. 

 {Tribe Vandese, subtribe Stanhopieae.) 



The flowers of these plants are very extraordinary-looking 

 objects. They are of large size, and before they open are of 

 the shape of a Chinese foot ; after opening, the large sepals, 

 which at first are spread out, soon collapse, as do the smaller 

 petals ; the lip is pendulous from the end of a stout arm or 

 claw, beyond which, at the base, it is developed into a hood- 

 like body (hypochil), and at the apex terminates in a helmet- 

 shaped pouch (epichil), the hinder part of which (mesochil) 

 is involute ; the pouch is connected with the hood by a 

 hollowed fleshy stalk, which in some of the species is encircled 

 by transverse fleshy folds and ridges ; near the base of the arm 

 are a pair of finger-like lobes which secrete a sweet fluid, and 

 this, as long as the flower is in vigour, continues to drip from 

 them into the pouch. The plants are evergreen and pseu- 

 dobulbous ; the leaves lanceolate plicate, ten inches long, 

 and two or three inches broad. They produce their flowers 

 from the base of the bulbs on a drooping spike, four or five 

 together. The few species, some five or six altogether, are 

 found in Tropical South America. 



Culture. — These plants grow best in baskets with moss and 

 peat and good drainage, and require a liberal supply of water 



